Taken Unawares

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 867, 20 November 1916, Page 3

Taken Unawares

CHAPTER T. Tilt; PROMISE. The bright sunshine that lay full and blazing upon the London streets flickered but feebly through the drawn blinds and closed windows of a room off Piccadilly, where a man lay shivering with fi cold that touched his very heart.

Although it was mid-June outside and the papers were talking about the abnormal heat, Sir Anthony Tredwick lay with frozen hand's and feet, shivering—waiting, with his ears strained, his greywhite face motionless upon his pillow, and with his fingers beginning to pluck feebly at the thick satin eiderdown which covered the bed. It was breathlessly hot, and over the afternoon that was blazing away into evening there seemed to have fallen a silence as of the dead.

Everything seemed to be waiting, the very traffic seemed to have lulled, and the old man with the grey shadows stealing over his face, listened ami listened in vain for the stopping of a cab in the quiet street outside. A score of times the nurse moistened his lips with brandy, a score of times she had said to herself, " ITe will be too late," when, suddenly, at last, there came the hum of a motor, the rattle of its stopping engine, nn4 then the sound of a door being opened and closed below. ' At last!

The old man, so far gone into the shadows, roused. His eyes beckoned to the nurse.

"Tell him to be quick," he wliis

pered. She opened tlie door, and an instant later ushered a man into the room.

He was young, but his grave face at first sight gave one the impression of middle age. TTe was tall, but a slight Stoop took away from his height. ITe bad good features —he was, in fact, a handsome man, but something in his expression spoilt, his looks, and his~ lips looked too set, his face too hard and cold, and his eyes too dull to be attractive.

"You are Mr Hindon, of course?" the nurse said quickly in a low voice. "Sir Anthony has been waiting for you for hours —you are. almost, too late."

"I Only got his wire a quarter of an hour-ago—on leaving the court," Humphrey Hindon said. "T came on at once."

ITe went forward into the room and bent over the lied; and now he looked tired. A case, one even more trying than his cases usually were, had unnerved him oddly. Not. that, he was easily unnerved, but. his client, a goldenhaired, blue eyed woman, accused of forgery, had reminded him in a curious, painful way of the woman he had loved years ago, and it had affected him more than he would have believed.

No, with an effort, he threw off the memory, and bent over the old man. "Sir Anthony," he said, "I am sorry to see you like this. I am more sorry than T can say." The old man had stirred and was now peering up, straining his eyes to see the face he had not seen for nearly 10 years.

"Draw up the blinds, Humphrey," he said. "How dark it, is."

Humphrey lot in the blazing August sunshine, and it poured into the room strong and fierce. "Sit hero—where I can see you," went on the low voice. "Humphrey, I'm dying." There was no need for the words. It was visible to anyone—dying, and dying fast.

Humphrey ITindon had not seen him for ten years, and the change in him was now appalling. Then he had been a smart man of the world, always as correctly dressed as a fashion plate, a man whose whole life had seemed to be centred upon the latest things in -ties and gloves and hats, whose only interests were the latest scandal, the latest divorce, and any and every sort of gambling. Now, i; was strange to see him here like this—broken, beaten, and dying.

His dim eyes were painfully strained to see Humphrey's face, ami his next words took him by surprise. "How old are you, Humphrey?" he asked. Humphrey started a little and passed his fingers through his thick hair. How old? For a, moment he had no answer, but. back into that quiet room there seemed to come crowding endless years. How old? "Thirty, T think," he answered. "No, J must be 31— getting on for 31." And he felt 50! "And you're a successful man, now Humphrey—rising—getting on—making name and fortune." "Yes, I believe I am." "And it's ten years since—since—r'nee—l—l—saved your life, my boy?" Yes, ton years! Humphrey stirred uneasily, and his face grew a little grey, and before him there seemed to rise a scene that he had fought, hard and desperately to forget. How often in those ten years had he wished Sir Anthony had let him die! He pushed back his chair a little. " Yes —it's a long time ago, Sir Anthony," he said huskily, "but I haven't forgotten " No—nor the touch of a woman's hands, or (he sound of her voice that he had lost! "I haven't forgotten," ho repeated, "nor that, I owed you some return for what you did for me—which I have never made. But, perhaps, now I can. You wanted to see me about something. Is it your will ?" "No—no." Sir Anthony jerked his head a little to one side ami drew a breath. "No--not that! Humphrey, you said then—ten years ago —that no task would be too great " Humphrey hesitated a minute, but he eould not tell this old man that things had changed after he had made that vow—that he had saved a life that was valueless. When he had said that to Sir Anthony ten years ago, he had not known that he had then, at, that moment, lost the only tiling I hat made life worth living. He shut down the memory and steadied his face. "Yes, I said so, and I'll keep my word, Sir Anthony. Anything I can do for you 1 will. Von have only to ask." Ah! The old man's eves were on him in a. puzzled wonder—in a vague fear. Would he do as he was goiii" to ask?" His old hands began to travel back wards and forwards upon the satin quilt again. His face quivered.

[All Rights Reserved]

By ANNIE 0. TIBBITS Author of ii§ijigaa|i§|^ " The Threads of Destiny," " Life's Revenge," etc.

"Humphrey—swear it;! " he cried. "I —Humphrey, lad, for-God's sake don't go back on your word." "1 won't go back," said Humphrey. '' You promise?'' '' I promise.'' "Then, Humphrey, do you remember my child—Terry—my girl?" Remember? For a moment Humphrey looked puzzled. Then, on a sudden. there burst upon his memory the fresh, fair face of a golden haired girl of 10 or so. Through the mist of years that hung in between that time and this, he saw Ikm- like a tinge of golden idouil against a sky of black. "Terry! f remember.''

A wild laughing face, a pair of reck 'ess, impudent child's eyes of a won dorful blue, red lips, rounded in mock ing curves, a fine oval of cheek and chin

Ah, she had been an extraordinarily beautiful child, but like an elf—tormenting, naughty, rebellious. He remembered. A strange, wild little child. Sir Anthony's eyes had never left his face. He was painfully trying to read the expression upon it, and apparently he was satisfied, for, gathering up his waning strength, he turned round in a last appeal to Humphrey—an appeal to pay the debt he owed him when he saved his life 10 years before.

"Humphrey, it's a hard thing I'm going to ask of you, and yet, another man ought not to think so—another man—but vou—"

He broke off, peering, peering at the face that ought to have been young, and which yet, somehow, looked too grave and set. It had always beeu a little grave. Even dying though he was, Sir Anthony Tredwick remembered that.

Humphrey Hindoo had been too staid and conscientious years ago for him to make a companion of him—too grave and serious for the golden-haired woman who had callously thrown him over for another anil richer man. Humphrey had been poor and ambitious then. He was rich and successful now, but he was not altered in other ways—he was still grave and serious and sober; and, for a moment, the man who had been a gay and conscienceless man about town, hesitated.

But the cold creeping up and ever up reminded him that he had no time to lose. He motioned Humphrey to moisten his lips with the brandy on the table, and then rallied his senses again. "Terry," he said, "I promised her mother when she was dying that I would look after her—and I haven't, and I've seen her about the bed here of late — Evelyn-—my wife, I mean —come to remind me, looking just as she looked when she —when she—came back—dp you remember? Ah, -no —why should you?"

His restless fingers plucked and plucked at the blue satin. His eyes left Humphrey's face and wandered about the room, out of which the blazing hot sunshine was slowly dying.

"You wouldn't remember—wouldn't know —you were too young to know, Humphrey. But she comes back now—my wife—and her eyes haunt me —the same look is in them —the reproach I dreaded —-for Terry. Oil, Humphrey, what am I to do? T promised Evelyn that T would look after Terry, and T haven't —I've neglected her, and when I am gone, she will be penniless—and alone." , Humphrey sat still, and slowly, painfully, Sir Anthony 's wasted hand crept out towards him. "Humphrey —you've p. imised—you won't go back now?" "I've promised. I'll do anything you ask," said Humphrey. "I want you to marry Terry." CHAPTER 11. AN OLD STORY. Humphrey started back. " That! "■" he cried hoarsely. '' It's impossible." It seemed to him that Sir Anthony had torn open an old and even yet unhealed wound. Mechanically he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead; and for a moment there was intense silence. "I can't. It's impossible," he repeated. He rose to his feet, within his heart a hatred of women and a bitter dislike of marriage born out of the ashes of a love of 10 years ago. "I can never marry," he added, and stopped, arrested by the sight of the dying man upon the bed. lie sprang forward and hastily held the glass of brandy to his lips, and waited nervously while the reluctant life came back to the old face and while the grey hue of death was beaten away once more for a little while. When Sir Anthony opened his eyes they had lost all the old light. . They were the drab colourless eyes of a dead man. "I might have known," he whispered. "You, too —oh, Humphrey, for God's sake help me. What is to become of her? If you only could —bring yourself to think of it—marriage with you would be her salvation." Humphrey pulled himself together and forced himself to face the old man calmly. "Toll me what you mean?" he said. "Why should you want me to marry her? Why, she must be 10 years younger than I " "Yes—lo years—not more; and beautiful, Humphrey." A faint eagerness leapt, .into the feeble voice. A gambler he had been all his life, and a gambler lie was still even on his deathbed—gambling now, to ease his conscience, with a girl's young life and a man's dead heart. He made an effort and turned, pointing a shaking finger towards a table on the other side of the room. And perhaps this was the luckiest thing this gambler ever did. "Beautiful, Humphrey! loot:, seo for yourself how lovely she has grown." Mechanically Humphrey turned, and, crossing the room, took up from the table a photograph in a silver frame. fie looked down at it carelessly, and the next, instant a feeling which he was never able to explaiu took possession of him —a queer sense that he wanted to protect the girl whose great eyes looked at him from the gleaming frame. It was a bad photograph, but even in spite of that he was aware that she was an exquisitely beautiful girl. Her oval face, with its wealth of fair hair, had a strange piquancy and charm—an evil charm, perhaps, for the face was bold and daring, and the lips slightly hard. Hut it. affected him as in all his life he had only been affected once before, (To be continued. J